Higher than normal operational ceiling?

Jim D · Oct 28, 2023

Yesterday I flew in the WA Cascades near my house. When checking settings on my Mavic 3 I was happy to see I could set my operational ceiling over 3000ft! No chance of aircraft in the valley I'd hiked up so I flew up to about 1900 to shoot a 360º pano. Today I installed new firmware and went back to see if the operational ceiling was still high. Nope, back to 500m. Anyone else have this happen? Is there any way to get that high ceiling back? Would be very useful to me in the mountains.

mavic3usa · Oct 28, 2023

In the US, it isn't legally to fly your drone that high regardless what's up there. You can fly at any attitude you are authorized to be at as long as it isn't more than 400 feet above the ground below you (without a waiver). If you just took off and flew up to 1900 feet to get a good shot, I'm not sure that's completely legal. But I'm not 100% sure because I think I did what you did when I was in Mexico so someone can correct me if I am wrong. BTW, those mountains are in Chile, right?

Meta4 · Oct 28, 2023

mavic3usa said:
BTW, those mountains are in Chile, right?

He said they are in the Cascades Mountains in Washington State.

Droning on and on... · Oct 28, 2023

As has been discussed in 3,278 threads here on MPDC, there are a variety of completely legal scenarios where one can maintain <400ft AGL while exceeding 1640ft higher than the takeoff location.

A past firmware upgrade raised the max height above takeoff to 1000m for the Mavic 3, resulting in great joy and praise for DJI. This allowed some amazing footage from the rockies in the US, for example.

Why this was reversed is boggling.

shb · Oct 28, 2023

Great picture! Great place to fly a drone. I was looking forward to trying the 3,000 feet when I got to the province. Too bad they rescinded it.

EssenYVR · Oct 29, 2023

mavic3usa said:
In the US, it isn't legally to fly your drone that high regardless what's up there. You can fly at any attitude you are authorized to be at as long as it isn't more than 400 feet above the ground ~~below you~~ below the drone

Fixed that for you.

In the mountains there's plenty of ground above you that's below the drone.

GregS · Oct 29, 2023

mavic3usa said:
In the US, it isn't legally to fly your drone that high regardless what's up there. You can fly at any attitude you are authorized to be at as long as it isn't more than 400 feet above the ground below you (without a waiver). If you just took off and flew up to 1900 feet to get a good shot, I'm not sure that's completely legal. But I'm not 100% sure because I think I did what you did when I was in Mexico so someone can correct me if I am wrong. BTW, those mountains are in Chile, right?

Missing the point. It's 400' AGL, not from take off point. So one can climb the side of a mountain and be legal. A guy with a Phantom 4 Pro went over 23,000' and was legal...he was in the Himalayas. Max altitude of the drone must be set to accomplish this.

mavic3usa · Oct 29, 2023

EssenYVR said:
Fixed that for you.

In the mountains there's plenty of ground above you that's below the drone.

Wow, tough crowd. You honestly think "below you" meant anything else besides "below drone?" In the next sentence, I said "If you took off..." do you think I meant "if the pilot took off...?"

mavic3usa · Oct 29, 2023

GregS said:
It's 400' AGL, not from take off point. So one can climb the side of a mountain and be legal. A guy with a Phantom 4 Pro went over 23,000' and was legal...he was in the Himalayas. Max altitude of the drone must be set to accomplish this.

Excellent, glad you agree with my statement 100%.

Torque · Oct 29, 2023

Jim D said:
Yesterday I flew in the WA Cascades near my house. When checking settings on my Mavic 3 I was happy to see I could set my operational ceiling over 3000ft! No chance of aircraft in the valley I'd hiked up so I flew up to about 1900 to shoot a 360º pano. Today I installed new firmware and went back to see if the operational ceiling was still high. Nope, back to 500m. Anyone else have this happen? Is there any way to get that high ceiling back? Would be very useful to me in the mountains.

View attachment 169634

Beautiful shot! It was an absolutely beautiful day yesterday. I made my end of the season drive over the Chinook Pass into Yakima then through Yakima River Canyon to Ellensburg and home via I-90.

EssenYVR · Oct 29, 2023

mavic3usa said:
Wow, tough crowd. You honestly think "below you" meant anything else besides "below drone?" In the next sentence, I said "If you took off..." do you think I meant "if the pilot took off...?"

Apologies for verging on the sarcastic. But your immediate reaction was "you can't do that" despite the blatantly obvious references to mountainous territory both in the OP's text and in his photo. Those of us in mountainous territory are regularly stymied from using our drones in a perfectly safe and legal manner because of the height restrictions in the drone software, so it's a bit of a contentious point for us.

I shot the frame grab below yesterday at Waleach Lake near Vancouver BC. It was taken 500m above the launch point. I would have liked to have been able to get higher into the snow zone, but could not.

Waleach-Lake-08.MP4_20231029_083637.141.jpg

mavic3usa · Oct 29, 2023

EssenYVR said:
Apologies for verging on the sarcastic. But your immediate reaction was "you can't do that" despite the blatantly obvious references to mountainous territory both in the OP's text and in his photo. Those of us in mountainous territory are regularly stymied from using our drones in a perfectly safe and legal manner because of the height restrictions in the drone software, so it's a bit of a contentious point for us.

No problem, I get it. Such limits and restrictions are bad, bad ideas and I agree it should be eliminated but it's so unnecessary.

Jim D · Oct 29, 2023

Thanks for all the replies. Now I wish I hadn't loaded that new firmware, at least for a while. Wonder why they let us go to 1000m, but then took it away.

In the shot I posted if I would have had the time and energy I could have hiked another two miles and 2000 ft. of elevation gain up a steep trail to Forgotten Medows on the ridge top saddle seen on the right side of the picture. If I'd taken off from there I could have legally gotten to the same place I flew to from the valley.

As far as I know the reason for the 400 ft. limit is to avoid mixing drones with planes which only normally only fly below that during take off and landing. I'm sure many of us often break the 400 ft. rule, but always keep and eye and ear out for aircraft and immediately descend if we hear anything. One of the nice things about the Mavic 3 is the warning of approaching aircraft.

akdrone · Oct 29, 2023

I would argue for all of us to not bother making the point that this or that footage is illegal. It just isn't any of our business or so it seems to me. I've taken shots from alongside a mountain that looks out over a valley with no reference to the mountainside just below my drone. It probably looks like I flew straight up 2500 feet...but I didn't. Regardless of that, I just think it's not our business to be the drone police. That's all I'll say on that.

Droning on and on... · Oct 29, 2023

Jim D said:
As far as I know the reason for the 400 ft. limit is to avoid mixing drones with planes which only normally only fly below that during take off and landing.

That's my understanding. Probably the most important rule.

Keep in mind manned aircraft can fly below 400' for crop-dusting, coastal sight-seeing, and some other activities, so vigilance always.

Jim D said:
I'm sure many of us often break the 400 ft. rule, but always keep and eye and ear out for aircraft and immediately descend if we hear anything. One of the nice things about the Mavic 3 is the warning of approaching aircraft.

Often? Not me.

Years ago when I first was into the hobby I did, took my Mavic Pro to a [classified

] altitude after removing the 500m hard limit with a hack. It was interesting for the novelty of it, but in retrospect it was dangerous and reckless.

Been doing this a decade, and rarely go higher than 300ft. There's just no reason to. All the interesting things to see and shoot with a camera drone is almost always below 200ft. With an FPV there's basically no reason to exceed 100-200' AGL, except briefly, ever.

akdrone · Oct 29, 2023

Jim D said:
Thanks for all the replies. Now I wish I hadn't loaded that new firmware, at least for a while. Wonder why they let us go to 1000m, but then took it away.

In the shot I posted if I would have had the time and energy I could have hiked another two miles and 2000 ft. of elevation gain up a steep trail to Forgotten Medows on the ridge top saddle seen on the right side of the picture. If I'd taken off from there I could have legally gotten to the same place I flew to from the valley.

As far as I know the reason for the 400 ft. limit is to avoid mixing drones with planes which only normally only fly below that during take off and landing. I'm sure many of us often break the 400 ft. rule, but always keep and eye and ear out for aircraft and immediately descend if we hear anything. One of the nice things about the Mavic 3 is the warning of approaching aircraft.

I don't understand what is going on here. I have the latest firmware and still can go to 3000ft IF I am in an area that allows that. If you are not sufficiently far away from airports then you will be limited to the 1640 or whatever that is...but then if you travel to an area that is sufficiently remote that 3000 ft option should be come available again. At least I hope that's the case as I have not tried to check for that recently. Like many people, I have to drive a ways in order to be away from our local airport area and currently my drone has the 1540 limitation showing. DJI's geo whatever website will show you if you are in a area that is free to get to 3000 or not if you select Mavic 3 as the drone being considered. Look at the left side and be sure to select Mavic 3. I still see the 3000 foot areas highlighted so I think it still must be an option. DJI FlySafe

minipro3 · Nov 4, 2023

mavic3usa said:
Wow, tough crowd. You honestly think "below you" meant anything else besides "below drone?" In the next sentence, I said "If you took off..." do you think I meant "if the pilot took off...?"

Actually you guys are tame and respectful compared to a gun forum I belong too. They are brutal and annoying